Then, like a river pouring through a broken dam, the citizens of Ephesus flooded though the gate and came rushing down the Sacred Way toward the temple. I could no longer make out a chant. I heard only a great roar that grew louder and louder. By the time the mob reached the sacred precinct, the sound was deafening.
“Oh, sweet Artemis!” whispered Anthea, touching her lips. “It’s going to happen.”
The mob carried knives, axes, cudgels, chains, ropes, and bags full of stones. Without hesitation, they fell upon those Romans who had not fled into the temple and set about killing them.
I had seen men die in public before, at gladiator shows in Rome. My father had allowed me to attend a few such spectacles despite his own dislike for them, because I had begged to see them. After seeing a few, I had seen enough. What I saw that day in Ephesus was a little like seeing death in the arena, as I watched from a safe distance while blood was spilled below me. The ring of soldiers were the audience, as they held their line and looked on, cheering. But the killers were not gladiators. They were ordinary people, and their victims were unarmed men and women and children, all savagely slaughtered without mercy.
I saw old men beheaded, children stoned to death, and women staked spread-eagled to the ground and raped. I saw a man cut in two with an ax. I saw men wrap a baby in a bloody toga, throw it against the ground, and then stamp on it.
Those of us watching from the veiled window frequently turned away, sickened and overwhelmed. I think only Kysanias stayed at the window without flinching, forcing himself to witness all that happened below.
Suddenly, by her tangled red hair and tattered stola, I recognized the widow of the Roman I had seen put to death for seizing a spear. Burdened by the frail child she carried and unable to reach the temple in time, the widow sought refuge at the altar. A group of a dozen or more women fell on her, dragging her from the altar. They held her down, tore off her clothing, then ripped out handfuls of her hair. They kicked her repeatedly, then forced her to watch while a man picked up her child by the feet, swung him around and around, and then smashed his head against the stone altar.
The man threw the limp corpse aside, then shouted, “Should I do the same to the Roman bitch?”
“Not yet,” shouted one of the women. “Let her weep over her dead darling for a while, then we’ll come back and finish her off. You can have a go at her if you want.”
That was when I turned away from the window and stopped watching.
But I heard what happened next. Having killed almost every Roman in sight, the mob rushed into the temple. The huge open space of the sanctuary seemed to magnify the screams below us as the Romans were dragged outside, then murdered on the temple steps.
I sat on the floor, slumped against the statue’s pedestal. Bethesda huddled beside me. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep despite the screams.
It was a dark, uneasy sleep. I dreamed that I was still awake, standing at the window, watching one scene of horror after another, longing to look away but unable to turn my head or close my eyes. Behind me, the statue of Artemis wept. The Furies, flitting on their batlike wings above the killing field, mocked Artemis with doglike barks, grinning to show their fangs and watching all that happened with eyes like glowing coals.
[From the secret diary of Antipater of Sidon:]
Thank Artemis! Gordianus has finally fallen asleep.
The poor boy should have taken a sleeping potion like Freny and slept through the massacre. Now he will have these sounds and images in his head forever.
I will force myself to watch until the very end. I did everything I could to support the king against the Romans, and now I must see the result.
I think I am not long for this world, anyway. Not just because I am an old man, but because I have no more poems in me. My last verses were those I recited aloud in the Grove of the Furies, while Gordianus pretended to speak-before a royal audience, at last! But those words fell on deaf ears. They created a brief sensation, but did not achieve the desired effect. The ritual was interrupted and the sacrifice aborted, but the massacre was not averted. My most ambitious poem was a failure.
These are my last written words, upon this page. Not a poem, not a confession, not an indictment-merely the final scribblings of a man who fancied himself the world’s finest poet, who saw a great deal of the world, who played spy for a while, who came to sorrow in the end. But the sight of you has given me a last moment of joy, Gordianus.
Two nights ago, we were reunited, but our meeting was not exactly a reconciliation-we hardly spoke about the long silence between us, and my hasty departure from Alexandria, and the fact that I deceived you for so long. Circumstances were pressing, and we had no time to speak of all that. But in a way what happened was better, at least for me. We trained our thoughts on a single goal and collaborated on a joint enterprise, devising the words to be spoken by that “uncanny voice,” going over them again and again so that we would both know them by heart. We were like tutor and pupil again-except that in this effort we were equal partners, and working toward a selfless objective, the saving of so many innocent lives. I hope that is how you will remember me, as a poet who used his talents in a noble cause, at least at the end, and not as a skulking spy who tricked an unsuspecting Roman youth.
I give these words to you, Gordianus. They are for your eyes and for no one else’s. When you are done reading them, burn them, lest they be found on your person and get you into trouble.
Looking through what I have written, I see that a few more pages have gone missing. Monime’s minions must have rifled through the pages and stolen a few more. Why did they take a certain page and send it to you, Gordianus? For surely it must have been Monime who lured you here. But why?
I think the queen was determined to destroy me, or rather, to have her husband destroy me, but first he had to be turned absolutely and irrevocably against me. Had she merely shown him this or that incriminating page from my journal, he might simply have laughed it off-the King of Kings has no fear of mere words. But if she could succeed in luring my Roman protege to Ephesus, and catch the two of us in the act of conspiring against the throne, Mithridates could be convinced to kill us both. It was a good thing you played your part so stealthily, Gordianus, and kept your mouth shut. You came to Ephesus and actually met the queen-and she never knew who you were, or your connection to me! Had you been exposed as a Roman and my pupil, Monime would have told the king that I was a double agent and that you were my Roman handler, and that would have been the end of us.
What a creature the queen is! If she had her way, you and I would have been flayed alive-and little Freny would have had her throat cut, just to spite Mithridates.
What I have seen today is the last straw. Not only has my muse been silenced, but any partisanship I felt for the cause of Mithridates is done with. When I imagine that such slaughter is happening not only here but also in cities all over the kingdom, I am sickened.
I have left intact, among these pages, the one I wrote two nights ago, in which I pretended to praise the king and his cause and look forward to the sacrifice. You will understand that I wrote that passage knowing it might very likely be read by one of Monime’s spies, or for all I know, a spy of the king, and it was my intent to put the hounds off the scent. I state this explicitly lest you think that passage was in any way sincere, and that I might have been thinking of betraying you at the last minute.